Posted by Pierre Khawand on Thu, May 06, 2010 @ 06:37 PM
The above blog entry was also posted on Twitter with a link to the original blog article. Soon after it was posted on Twitter, I got the following answer:
Which was posted by the Delicious.com team, an active member of the Twitter community as you see below:
Obviously, the Delicious.com team in this case didn't realize that my post was actually answering this question and therefore they proceeded with answering it. But that is not the point here. The point is that they are diligently watching out for their brand and addressing issues immediately as they come up.
Are you watching over your brand and your users like the Delicious.com team?
If not, here are 5 ways to get you started:
- Use Twitter.com search to keep any eye on what is being said about your brand
- Create a dedicated column in Tweetdeck to make this easy
- Setup Google Alerts for your brand name and related keywords
- Setup an RSS feed to relevant LinkedIn Answers topics that relate to your brand
- Join relevant Facebook and LinkedIn groups and discussions
What did I miss? How else are you watching for your brand in Social Media and the blogosphere? What else might you recommend?
Additional Resources
Recording of the
5 Social Media Tools by Jenny Blake lunch & learn webinar at the "Accomplishing more with less" group on Facebook
Posted by Pierre Khawand on Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 05:22 PM
"Motivation Day 2K10" (organized by California Staffing Professionals) started today with a keynote by Craig Silverman, Partner and Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Albin Engineering, which was indeed insightful and motivating. Among the many things that Craig shared with the audience were these questions which he encouraged everyone to reflect upon and answer:
- How do I rank my ability to ask good questions
- How do I rank my ability to listen
- How strong is my understanding of my clients businesses and how they buy
- How good is my ability to track metrics, progress, and results
- How strong is my ability to develop great relationships
There were additional reflections, but I just want to highlight these areas because I would like to suggest that these apply not only to our success with our motivation in pursuing business goals, and our effectiveness in dealing with customers, but just as well in our Social Media effort.
The Social Media experts continue to stress the important of listening to the conversation instead of simply broadcasting messages (Brian Solis) and staying on brand instead of entertaining everyone with our lunch or weekend plans (Jason Alba in his lunch & learn webinar with us last year) and Elaine Starling (in her lunch & learn webinar last Fall). So could we extract some simple but valuable Social Media best practices from these insights?
A few simple best practices for our Social Media conversations
Best Practice #1: Observing and listening before jumping in and/or hijacking the conversation.
Best Practice #2: Contributing with relevant and compelling content; not the chatter! or use the 80/20 rule. In this case 80% compelling, 20% chatter.
Best Practice #3: Tracking progress and results using metrics that are carefully defined
This is a start, and now your turn to add to this! Please share your comments below!
More resources
Posted by Pierre Khawand on Sun, Jan 31, 2010 @ 12:30 PM
It is a human tendency to take the path of least resistance. To do the easy stuff first. As we do the easy things first though, what is ahead of us is always more difficult than what we currently have. We end up living a "difficult" life with a persistent anxiety about what is next. After all, with this approach, what is next is always more difficult and we end up with more stress and less results:
Let us take a look at the alternative. If we reverse this tendency and do the most difficult first, observe what happens:
What happens is that our anxiety is gone. The next task is now easier. Most importantly, we face the real issues, get real data, gain experience, develop skills, and increase our confidence. We most often rise to the occasion and reap the benefits. Even if we don't fully succeed at the task, we still succeed at learning from it, and being able to apply this knowledge again and again.
Here are 3 ways that can help us adopt this new approach of heading towards the most difficult first:
- Start with sound task design. As I suggested a few weeks ago (see When the task seems overcomplicated or overwhelming, reconsider the "task design"!) start by setting the right expectations, then line up the necessary resources, and don't forget to break down the task into manageable components.
- Get support and advice. More often than not, the help we need to approach the most difficult is just around the corner or even in front of our eyes. All we have to do is look around and ask. People are more willing to help and provide support when we make it easy for them to do so.
- Just do it. We have heard the "just do it" a million times but hearing it and applying it are two different things. It is only when we dive into the action that we can truly experience the learning and the emotions that go with it. It is all wishful thinking until we action.
Your turn to get better at managing stress and getting business results through action with the most difficult action first! Your comments below!
Posted by Pierre Khawand on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 09:38 PM
It was at one of the local Whole Foods Market stores, and suddenly her voice got louder and louder. Everyone was scrambling to see what is going one. One thing was obvious is that this customer was very upset. Angry is more like it. From what we were able to understand, it sounded that "I almost fell" what she was saying, as she pointed to something on the floor and continued the scene for another 5 minutes, only to restart again when the next level manager showed up.
Does "almost" count? And how much does it count?
Let us move on to a new scene. You do the work. You do your best, and do great work, and use great judgment, and you almost make the quota, or win that customer, or get that project successfully completed, but you don't. Does "almost" count?
After all, you put the effort, and it was the right effort. Should you still be rewarded for putting the effort as opposed to getting the business results (which let us say you didn't get in this case)? Or do the business results rule everything? Are the "results" king and everything else not worthy?
What do you think? Let me know and we will continue the reflection and conversation!